Acquisition of Industrial Training Skills and Its Impact on Business Education Students’ Self-Efficacy in Entrepreneurship in Rivers State Universities
Keywords:
Acquisition, Skill Training, Business Education, EntrepreneurshipAbstract
The main purpose of this study is to establish the relationship between acquisition of determine whether there is a relationship between acquisition of Students’ Industrial Work Experience skills and Business Education Students’ self-efficacy level toward entrepreneurship. Three research questions guided the study and one hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted correlation design. The population of the study was 1,595 year three and year four Business Education Students in Rivers State Universty and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education and the sample size was 480 Business Education Students that have undergone SIWES. Two self-structured sets of questionnaires were used for the study; the first instrument was to find out the skills acquired by Business Education students during SIWES and the second instrument was to find out the self-efficacy Level of Business Education Students toward entrepreneurship. The instruments were validated by two experts in Business Education Department and a Measurement and Evaluation expert all in the Faculty of Education, Rivers State University. The reliability of the instruments were achieved through Cronbach Alpha coefficient, which yielded a reliability index 0f 0.75 for ITSBES and 0.83 for SELBES. Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer research questions and Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to establish the relationship between the two variables. T-test for correlation analysis was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significant and decision was made based on the t-value. Findings from the study revealed that Business Education Students acquired communication skills, leadership skills relationship building skill, self confidence and self motivation problem solving skill and so on. It was also reveal that business education students have high self-efficacy level to entrepreneurship after SIWES training. Finally, it was reveal (r=0.54), indicating that a positive relationship exist between SIWES and self-efficacy. Therefore, there is significant relationship between the skills acquired by Business Education Students during SIWES and their self-efficacy level toward entrepreneurship in Rivers State Universities. It was recommended amongst others that since SIWES increases the self-efficacy level of students, the government and the institutions should offer some form of award to students that performed excellently during the training period, as this will motivate other students to take the training period serious.